


the wizard in the depths of the woods

by heylittlesister



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-15 14:38:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heylittlesister/pseuds/heylittlesister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah returns to the Labyrinth of her own volition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the wizard in the depths of the woods

Sarah Williams was happy, but still she woke in cold sweats sometimes. It happens to all of us. She can remember her visage in the gilded mirrors; the thin, brittle-boned mouse of a girl in the arms of the fearsome and elusive Goblin King – the image is seared onto her memory, and what disturbed her most is that it made her comfortable; the animals in their fur coats and masks, the glittering halls, the guests and the ominous calm of a world unlike anything she could find in this one – a world where things matter and things are real.

She’d lost that childish idealism long ago. She was now a college student studying history and biological sciences (particularly, she was quick to note, entomology); and yet even now, she still bore the scars of her time in the Labyrinth, even in the form of symbols. She would be swarmed by moths, particularly _cicada_ , and butterflies sometimes; she woke to the strange hooting of an owl outside her bedroom window in the earliest hours of the morning, just before the dawn – the time when the veil between our world and theirs is most thin. Without dreams, she felt a usually boundless imagination shrinking into nothing.

She is almost grown-up now, a wild yet worldly thing, with a pretty, witty face and her dark mane is sleek and long. Sometimes she comes home, back to David and Irene and Toby and Merlin, who is getting old and grey, ageing seven years for each one of hers. Still Sarah fades back into the family picture like no time has passed with each meeting. Toby is getting bigger now, too – a young boy. The last time she returned home she and Toby were the first to reunite. She ran her fingers through his blond locks, cradled him to her and inhaled her little brother’s scent. She hid her happiness and her pride under a façade of fault-finding, but she was sure he saw through it.

Sarah Williams was happy, and yet. She didn’t feel real nor complete somehow in this world. It was the closest she would ever come, she imagined, and in that respect she was possibly closer than most – but sometimes she had to remind herself that she was back at home, with Toby ( _Toby Toby Toby_ ), safe and loved by the parental unit. She hadn’t stayed. She was Sarah Williams again, a wholesome but mortal girl, and one day she would die and rot away like the rest of them. It was inevitable.

Sometimes she wonders how different her life would have been if she had made that deal.

When Jareth had stood before her, all shining blond locks and dark, inquisitive eyes, she had declined the offer, but it had tempted her to her very core, because every little girl wants to be special, every little girl wants to be the Goblin Queen. She never supposed, of course, that she was fated for it any more than any other; but apparently she was wrong. Yet fate aside, Toby needed her.

And yet, Toby did not seem to need her any more. He loved her, of course, and she him - she loved him as much as ever and then more, her heart feeling as though it would burst with pride when he came to embrace her. She and Toby had grown since the days of his babyhood and her adolescence, and her bond with him was deeper, more profound, than it could possibly be with her father or stepmother, although she loved them both.

And yet. 

Toby was at the pinnacle of her father and Irene's hopes, dreams and desires now; Sarah had followed her own path, and they loved her for it, but she was gone, had flown the nest - was outside the security that childhood and idealism provided, with no hope of getting back in. 

On second thoughts, she had a hope. It was small, scarce, and almost impossible; but it was there.

When the owl came that night to perch in the tree outside her bedroom, she followed it. She followed it as far as she could go - which was about as far as you or I could go and then much further - and came upon the woods.

And there he was.

She halted.

“You’ve – changed,” was the first thing he said to her, a cold, sardonic smile curling at the corners of his lips - an outstretched hand. He saw the sleek dark hair and the arched eyebrows and the lips painted red, the cardigans and jeans she wore in scarlets and greys and cobalt blues - but he had offered his hand to her, and she knew he recognised her as the young girl in the dresses and with the untamed hair. 

“You haven’t,” she replied pettishly, almost turning her back on him – and yet it was true. For every day she had aged, he had remained the same. That cold smile was all she needed for further proof. He was wearing the same black gloves as he had all those years before, Sarah thought, as she accepted the profferred hand. There was that same look in his eyes there had been all those years before; one of pity and almost desperation. One that made her take pity on him. And that was how she left.

She still watched Toby, she was able to see him through the various crystals and oubliettes in the labyrinths and palaces. She watched him grow up in the human world as she flocked with goblins and fairies. As she mourned the loss of the children she could never have, she watched him meet girls at college, eventually getting married and starting a family. Finally, she watched her baby brother become a widowed old man, whilst she sat in the garden of the Goblin King's palace, eternally young and immortal.


End file.
